By Don McNamara
and Mark Hrywna
Five years later, a study by The NonProfit Times has found that more than one-third of the organizations that received fast-tracked approval by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the Setember 11, 2001 terror attacks can’t be located and are assumed to have ceased operations. Another 38 organizations are known to have closed their doors.

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Five years after the horrors of September 11, 2001, World Cares Center continues to run the community centers that emerged from its response to the terrorist attacks. Tuesday’s Children, based in New York City, continues its ongoing effort to provide support to the loved ones of those who lost their lives.
World Cares Center operates two September Space community centers, both in New York. Founder and Executive Director Lisa Orloff began as a September 11 volunteer, working at the Jacob Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s West Side before moving to the World Trade Center site. One of the things Orloff and others noticed was that survivors, rescue workers and the relatives and friends of victims needed respite sites. From that came the first September Space, a 4,800-square-foot haven in Midtown Manhattan. The center offers a variety of programs aimed at health and healing for mind, body and spirit, including classes in yoga and relaxation techniques. There are career workshops, town hall meetings and peer-to-peer counseling sessions.

Orloff said that World Cares Center Inc. also was able to operate in a sort of umbrella role, supporting or housing other programs. “Some organizations couldn’t get a lot of funding, but they didn’t have to get funding for space because we were providing the space,” Orloff said. “They didn’t have to get a Web site because we provided one.”

Much of what World Cares does is an ongoing process of learning, as well as helping and healing. “During 9/11, people from places like Kosovo and Oklahoma City came to help us, give us a supporting shoulder,” Orloff said. “The psychosocial effect of a disaster is that the community feels disempowered. But being part of a recovery effort gives them a sense of control and becomes part of the healing process,” Orloff said. This approach is wrapped in a package of self care, involving the community.
The organization’s reach extended to aid for Hurricane Katrina, initially by helping those people who had fled to New York from the hurricane-ravaged area. In addition, it is working with people in Baton Rouge, La., for something modeled on September Space.

One year ago, a second September Space location was opened near the site of the World Trade Center. The Lower Manhattan Community Center will focus on the local population who lived through the September 11 attacks and are now witnessing the rebuilding and relocating efforts.